The Robber Girl

by Franny Billingsley

I let my eyes look at a tiny red ball, exactly the right size for my palm. But I had the candy in my palm. The candy was more important than the ball.

  “That’s a ball for jacks,” said Betsy.

  “Everyone knows that,” I said, except I wasn’t everyone.

  There were marbles in jars, and windup toys made in the shape of animals. They were small, with joints, like the dolls. Betsy turned a knob and made a dog dance on his hind legs. Was that the kind of dog I should get for the dollhouse? It might be about one-twelfth the size of a regular dog.

  The red ball would also fit into the dollhouse. Maybe the dog could chase it. Maybe when the baby got older, he could kick it.

  Behind us rose a glass case, where three brown bears sat on a shelf. The littlest one sat between the medium one and the biggest one. The biggest one was bigger than a raccoon. The bears had outstretched arms that said, “We’re soft. Come feel how soft we are.”

  But I couldn’t touch them. The candy was beginning to melt into a little green pool. I wouldn’t crack the candy, not like Betsy. I’d melt it in my mouth and get to the flower.

  “You’re not looking at the dolls,” said Betsy. “You have to look at them.”

  There were lots of dolls, but Betsy jabbed her finger at one, sitting on a lower shelf in the glass case. She was bigger than the mother doll, and she had golden hair and red lips. Her face was painted to look like real skin, all soft and rosy, with lights and shadows. She wore tiny pink shoes and a pink dress with ruffles and lace.

  You could tell the doll knew she was beautiful. She wasn’t friendly, not like the mother doll and father doll. Her arms stuck straight down, and she didn’t look at you.

  “There are real buttons on her shoes,” said Betsy. “She has real ringlets, just like me. She’s going to be my birthday doll, for when I turn eleven. She’s made of china and she came from France.” Betsy poked the glass case. “Look at all the things that come with her.”

  The doll had a trunk, but it had been stood on its end, which turned it into a wardrobe. The lid was open, which was like the wardrobe door being open, with a pole along the top, to hang things. A rainbow of doll clothes spilled from the trunk—lace underthings and coats and shoes and dresses.

  “She has a hat with flowers,” said Betsy, “and a hat with a veil. She even has shoes for a party.” The shoes were the smallest things imaginable, with lacy sides and tiny bows.

  “She’s from France,” said Betsy. “Didn’t you hear me? She’s made of china and she came all the way from France.”

  I stared into my palm, into the little pool of green. I curled my fingers around the candy, but I could see the flower in my memory. I would bring the flower to the surface.

  “China is fragile,” I said. “That means her heart can break.”

  “What do you know about china?” Betsy’s eyes were brown with yellow flecks. “What do you know about anything?” She pushed her face too close to mine. “Look at the doll dressed in white. She’s a bride doll, but a robber girl wouldn’t know that.”

  “Everyone knows that,” I said.

  “Look at the doll with the crown,” said Betsy. “A robber girl wouldn’t know she’s a princess doll.”

  “Everyone knows that.” But I wasn’t everyone.

  “A robber girl wouldn’t know china is best,” said Betsy.

  But the mother and father dolls had told me china was fragile and that it was dangerous to be fragile. I knew about china.

  “Dolls that come from France are the best of all,” said Betsy. “China is the best. France is the best.”

  “But her heart can break,” I said.

  “Dolls don’t have hearts,” said Betsy.

  I didn’t like not knowing things in the Indigo Heart, like why you’d have a knife with no edge, just to cut butter. Like why the Judge took his hat on and off so often. Like why you took candy with a scoop and not your hands. But I knew one thing Betsy didn’t know.

  “They do so have hearts,” I said.

  “You’re crazy,” said Betsy. “No one likes a girl who’s crazy.” Betsy’s face was red and white, to match her dress. Her cheeks made round red circles, but her mouth made a white line.

  “It would be stupid to play with dolls if they had no hearts,” I said. “You’d just be playing with something that’s dead.” I’d never had these thoughts before. They made sharp, uncomfortable shapes in my mind.

  “You’re an ignorant robber girl. You’re not the one with a whole store of dolls.”

  “Robber girls don’t play with dolls.” But even as I said this, I saw a baby doll on the topmost shelf. It stood in a wooden stand with a carved-out scoop for its head. That was because babies couldn’t stand up by themselves. The baby wasn’t cold and unfriendly like the French doll. It held out its arms. “Take me!” said its arms. “Take me!”

  Also, a baby could stand up if it was holding a dog collar. “That doll,” I said. “The baby doll in the blue clothes—”

  “They’re only pajamas.” Betsy let her lips unpress themselves. “He doesn’t have nice clothes. He’s not from France.”

  “He?” The baby was a he?

  Would the mother and father doll want a boy baby? They hadn’t said which kind they wanted.

  “Of course he’s a he,” said Betsy. “Don’t you know anything? Pink is for girls; blue is for boys.”

  How I hated her, her smooth yellow ringlets, her jutting red face.

  “My shirt is blue,” I said.

  “You’re more like a boy than a girl.” You could tell she liked saying I was like a boy. She didn’t know it was good I was like a boy. She didn’t know that Gentleman Jack had always wanted a son.

  “What’s that doll made of?” I said.

  “He’s just wax,” said Betsy. She made it sound as though wax were a bad thing, but she was wrong. Wax was good. Wax was soft. Wax couldn’t shatter like china. Wax was as beautiful as china. The baby’s face was all round and soft; it was the color of peaches and cream.

  “Peaches and cream isn’t a color,” said the dagger.

  The baby’s eyes were blue, just like the mother doll’s eyes. Did his eyes close when he lay down? It would be good if his eyes closed.

  “He has bare feet,” I said. I knew babies caught cold easily. A baby’s feet should be covered in the wintertime.

  “He doesn’t have extra clothes,” said Betsy. “Not like the French doll.” Her eyes flickered up to someone behind me. My spine prickled.

  “She wants the china doll, Papa.”

  I turned around slowly. I’d forgotten to be alert. I’d forgotten to listen for footsteps. I hadn’t realized it would be so easy to forget. But I’d pretend I wasn’t surprised. Betsy’s papa was a big round man; his head was shiny and bald as an egg.

  “The china doll’s for me,” said Betsy.

  “I don’t play with dolls,” I said.

  “She doesn’t even know the difference between china and wax,” said Betsy.

  But I knew about the wax doll in the blue pajamas. I knew he had a heart that couldn’t break.

  “But she knows a few things.” The egg-man grabbed my arm and pried open my fingers. “A few things, eh!”

  There in my palm was the candy, lying in a sweet green pool.

  “She knows enough to get herself some sticky fingers.” The man dragged me back the way I’d come. “Let’s see what the Judge has to say about these sticky fingers.”

  He dragged me past the dancing dog and the marbles. Some of the marbles were like Betsy’s eyes, brown flecked with yellow. They were ugly. He dragged me past the red ball that was for jacks, past the yellow ball that was for kicking.

  “Let’s see what the Judge has to say about a girl who sticks her hand in the candy barrel.”

  Why didn’t Betsy tell the truth? Why didn’t she tell him I took the candy from the scoop?

  “I want to bite him,” said the dagger.

  Past the candy barrels, toward the table of tools.
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br />   “Grab the hammer!” said the dagger. Yes, the hammer with its red handle. But I had no hands free. The candy was in the palm of my dagger hand. The egg-man held my other hand. Quick as quick, I scooped the candy into my mouth.

  I couldn’t taste the candy. You can’t taste anything when your dagger hand is grabbing a hammer. You can’t hear anything when Betsy’s father is shouting about sticky fingers. You can’t hear the candy go crack, crack, crack.

  You have to remember what Gentleman Jack told you. He said it was better to attack first, defend later. He said I had the advantage of being small, and of being a girl, so folks wouldn’t expect me to attack.

  “If someone grabs you,” Gentleman Jack always said, “don’t struggle to get free. Use that person’s strength against him.”

  Betsy’s father was strong, which was good. He held my wrist hard, which was good. It meant his arm was stiff. It’s easier to hurt an arm that’s stiff.

  The red handle was bright. I swung; it arced through the air. The candy had gone crack, and now the hammer went crack. It cracked the egg-man’s elbow.

  He roared. He dropped my wrist. His arm fell to his side, limp and heavy. The hammer clattered to the floor.

  No time to lose, run for the door. When there’s a fight, it usually takes people a little while to figure out what’s happened, especially if one of the fighters is a maybe-eleven-year-old girl who isn’t very big. You have to take advantage of that little while; you have to run.

  I leapt past the Judge, who held his hat in his hands, in one of its mysterious takings-off and puttings-on. The Judge was still; the rest of the people were still; the weather was still. I bolted through a stillness of people into the stillness of the coming snow.

  Now to the Sapphire, where Betsy could never go because she was tame. But I could go because I was wild. I hated her—how I hated her! Someday I’d—

  “I’ll let you taste her blood,” I said.

  “Revenge!” said the dagger. “I love revenge.”

  Now at last I tasted the candy, the sour-sweet green apple prickling the back edges of my tongue. Later I would lick my palm. Later I would think about the flower I had cracked into careless bits.

  But for now, I was running.

  I HEARD THE SAPPHIRE BEFORE I SAW IT. Music spilled out the big double doors. They were swinging doors, and they were both open despite the coming snow. This was music that didn’t care what other music sounded like. It didn’t care that you couldn’t hum it or guess where it was going. It came sliding out the doors on its shoulder, laughing.

  And there was the peanut man, who was also the Songbird. I’d tell Gentleman Jack about him, and I’d be bright as a star. Later, we’d take him with us to Netherby Scar and give him to Grandmother.

  Or maybe he was just a Songbird. Maybe there was more than one.

  “Peanuts, peanuts! Fresh, hot peanuts!” How could a person not understand the words? The peanut smell shouted in the air. It was a smell-shout of fat oozing peanuts and salty steam. The peanut man looked very ordinary to be somebody Grandmother wanted so much. You could hardly even see him. The little cart was tucked between the wall and the slant of one of the open doors. It glowed with hot coals.

  I stood in the shout-smell of peanuts. There was too much noise inside, and people would be using curly knives and eating ashes and salt, and I wouldn’t understand anything. I wished I could go straight to the hideout. Even if Rough Ricky wasn’t there, I could catch a possum by the tail or trap a squirrel. Once, I’d thrown the dagger at a fox. There’s a lot of eating in a fox.

  The music hooked itself round my ankles, it tugged me inside. I smelled tobacco. It was a good smell. Rough Ricky smoked a pipe, and Rough Ricky would be waiting for me at the hideout. You knew what was going to happen in the hideout.

  I knew the tobacco smell, and I knew the sharp ping of whiskey and the thick smell of damp wool. I knew the noise. It was the same noise that was at the hideout, the noise of lots of men in the same space, dealing cards, placing bets, thumping tables, throwing darts.

  Someday I’d catch Betsy and bring her here, and she’d be in a place where she didn’t understand anything. And I’d take out the dagger and—

  “I’ll bite her!” said the dagger.

  I went up to a woman who stood beneath a metal halo suspended from the ceiling. It was set with six candles that dazzled her hair into shades of wheat and honey.

  “What brings you here, sweetheart?” she said.

  “I’m looking for Flora,” I said.

  “You have found Flora,” she said.

  Flora wasn’t rusty like Mrs. del Salto. Her honey hair curled around her shoulders, which rose from a purple dress with silver stripes. She put her arm around me, she led me to a table. She wore lace gloves without any fingertips.

  “Sit down,” she said. But I couldn’t sit down, not with the hat buttoned into my coat. I set it on the table.

  “Gentleman Jack’s hat!” said a voice. That was right; it was his hat, although it had been the Federal Marshal’s hat first. Then Doubtful Mittie’s hat. But the voices didn’t care. They asked for the hat, for the feather, for just one of Gentleman Jack’s gloves. But their hands were red and meaty. They’d never fit into his gloves.

  “Quiet!” said Flora.

  The men fell quiet. Flora lit a candle on one of the tables. It was easier to talk with a candle. It made you want to lean over the table.

  “Gentleman Jack wants me to talk to you,” I said.

  “Here you are,” said Flora. “About to do so.”

  “The Judge wants me to testify at Gentleman Jack’s trial.” The crazy, curling music poured itself sideways into my ear. “But I wouldn’t betray Gentleman Jack.”

  “Of course not,” said Flora.

  “Gentleman Jack said you would know what to do.”

  There was too much to look at in the Sapphire—the moose head behind the bar, the big dollar sign hanging on a wall, the ashtrays, the metal halos suspended above with their burning candles. I’d look at Flora instead. She was so restful.

  “You should testify at Gentleman Jack’s trial,” said Flora.

  “What?” I said.

  “What?” said the dagger.

  “John!” said Flora, not raising her voice. “We need a helping of your famous silver tongue.” It was noisy again, but her voice cut through the noise.

  “Fold!” said a voice from the card tables. “My lady awaits.”

  Flora called him John, but it turned out that everyone else called him Lord John. I liked the way he looked. I liked the way he walked and the way he dressed, which was fancy. I liked people who were fancy, I liked people who wore earrings. His was blue, which meant it was a sapphire.

  Lord John explained why I should testify. It was a way to get Gentleman Jack out of jail. I should tell the people at the trial that Gentleman Jack was someplace else when Marshal Starling was killed. If they believed me, then they’d have to decide Gentleman Jack hadn’t killed him.

  “The Fair was held that day,” said Flora. “You could say you’d been to the Harvest Fair with Gentleman Jack.”

  “I’ve never been to a fair,” I said.

  But Flora and Lord John would tell me all about the Fair. I would know so much about it, the people at the trial would believe I’d been there.

  “You’d have to say it as though you believed it,” said Lord John.

  I’d say it as though I believed it, which I did, because I believed in saving Gentleman Jack. “So I won’t run away to the hideout?” I said. “I’ll stay in the Indigo Heart and go back to the cottage?”

  “Yes,” said Flora. “If you want to save Gentleman Jack.”

  All at once, I was very tired. It was tiring not to run away so suddenly. “Gentleman Jack said to ask you about the Songbird.”

  “Tell him,” said Flora, “I have no information on that score.”

  But Flora was lying. There was a Songbird whistling right outside her front door. Why would
she want to keep him secret?

  “Gentleman Jack said to ask you about getting a good-luck opal.” I thought of the good-luck case in the General Store and the swimmery dazzle of the opals.

  “For stars’ sake!” said Flora. “He knows he can’t get an opal before he gets his gold.”

  “He also said to ask about getting his gold.” Actually, that was the first thing Gentleman Jack had said. If I’d been exercising judgment, I’d have asked it first.

  “The way I see it,” said Flora, “he won’t get his gold until he gets a Songbird.”

  And did he need a good-luck opal to get a Songbird?

  Flora guessed what I was thinking. “Smart girl,” she said.

  I wasn’t smart, but I was determined to get Gentleman Jack what he wanted, which was also what Grandmother wanted. And we already had the Songbird. All we had to do was grab him.

  “Tell me quick about the Fair,” I said. “The Judge will find me soon.”

  “He won’t find us for a while,” said Flora. We leaned into the circle of yellow flame. “First he’ll look in the genteel shops and offices.”

  “Then he’ll cross the Line to our side of town,” said Lord John. “He’ll look in the Den.” Doubtful Mittie had crossed a Line to come into the Territories. You crossed a Line when you went into a foreign place.

  “And the billiards hall,” said Flora. “And the roulette parlor.”

  The Judge would be going into a foreign place.

  We leaned in toward one another, into the pool of candlelight. I looked from Flora’s face to Lord John’s face. But then something went crack, and I sprang apart from myself.

  “No shooting!” said Flora’s fierce, clear voice. “This is your last warning, Nilsson.”

  A big man stepped forward. “Yes, I forget your rules. It doesn’t happen again. See, away goes the gun.” He set a revolver on the table. There were scratches in the table made by knives. Some of the scratches were letters; some of the letters were probably words.

  Flora jerked her head, and a pretty girl came over and snatched up the revolver. She ejected the shell casing; she knew about guns. Did everyone here know about guns? What about the other pretty girls walking around, all of them with long, loose hair?